ARRL FIELD DAY 1999
Call: W3TB Section: Rhode Island
Mode: CW Category: Multi Single, Class
1C QRP
BAND CW QSO CW QSO PTS SSB QSO SSB QSO PTS
160 0 0 0 0
80 32 320 0 0
40 64 640 0 0
20 124 1240 0 0
17 0 0 0 0
15 94 940 0 0
12 0 0 0 0
10 22 220 0 0
--------------------------------------------
336 + 0 = 336 QSO
SCORE: 336 Q's x 2pts (CW) x 5pts QRP = 3,360
Operator List: Blair Bates K3YD, Ted Edwards W3TB
Equipment Description: Ten-Tec Argosy @ 5 watts
Butternut HF6V vertical
QTH: Sailboat Honah Lee at Napatree Anchorage, Watch Hill, Rhode Island
The W3TB FD operation was aboard a 27' Sloop, the Honah Lee, anchored
in Rhode Island waters about 1/2 mile off Watch Hill, RI, in Napatree Inlet.
The bay water and ocean breeze
provided relief to the 95+ temperatures most of the east cost "enjoyed" that
weekend.
Our Butternut vertical (26' high) on a 27' sloop suffered high SWR
from interaction with the steel mast support cables and a 33' aluminum mast,
and we haven't perfected shipboard RF grounding--yet. We finally got the
antenna playing on 5 bands using a combination of an antenna tuner, a single
tuned radial, and untuned radials dropped into the salt water. We wondered,
but couldn't confirm, if we had some degree of directionality--particularly
on 40 meters--due to the proximate 33' mast.
We powered the entire contest with a single 12 V. marine battery with
solar panel for daylight charging. Neither of us had enough batteries to
operate a laptop for 24 hours and the current drain through a 12V. inverter
was more than the marine battery could sustain, so we used ancient operating
techniques--a K4 CMOS memory keyer and paper logs.
The QRP power and somewhat crippled antenna made for hard work on
both ends of many QSO. We couldn't "run" on any band. Only 1 station
answered our many CQ's and we worked only 1 tail-ender. So, it was 24 hours
of hunt-and-pounce. Some stations were worked on the 1st call, others on the
10th, some never! We seemed to have our best signal into the upper mid-west.
Thanks all you 8's, 9's and 0's. Double thanks to the ops who made the
effort to dig our signal out of the noise--after multiple repeats.
The decision to operate with paper logs (and no dupe sheets) resulted
in about 9% dupes when we ran the log through CT on Monday. (Does anybody
know of a logging program for a Palm Pilot or the WindowsCE operating system?)
After removing the dupes, we compared our final score with the 1998
FD results. Our score would have placed us second in the 1C category among
those scores.
73 from RI, Blair K3YD
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